


Coming In From The Cold

by 17 pansies (17pansies)



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, Geralt warms him up, Jaskier gets cold, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, That's it, just pure fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:28:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28436898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/17pansies/pseuds/17%20pansies
Summary: Yenn drops a near-frozen bard on Geralt's bedroom floor.  Geralt has to warm him up.That's it.  That's the fic.  Pure, unadulterated fluff.  Because it's cold and grim outside, and we could all use a hug from a warm Witcher.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 14
Kudos: 207





	Coming In From The Cold

The portal opens unexpectedly in the corner of his bedroom. Geralt is already reaching for his sword before he realises that the only person who would ever make an appearance like this is Yenn.

Sure enough, a second or two later, she steps through, bringing a miniature blizzard and a bedraggled figure wrapped in a shabby cloak with her.

“Solstice greetings,” she says and Geralt fights the urge to roll his eyes. Two hours before midnight on the shortest day, and she is still immaculately put together, as always. Her heavy winter cloak is trimmed with shimmering black fur, and sheds the rapidly melting snow with an ease that is positively magical.

“Solstice greetings to you also,” Geralt replies. He feels distinctly under dressed, clad as he is in heavy canvas trousers and a thick sweater of undyed grey wool. There is usually no need of armour inside Kaer Morhen, not with the snow six feet deep outside and nothing coming or going for another two months at least. He looks at the bedraggled figure which has slumped into a puddle on his floor, and a frisson of recognition goes through him. “Maybe, an explanation?” He gestures to the shivering heap in its little snow drift.

“Someone, in their wisdom, taught this idiot a simple summoning spell, and for some reason, I was the one he used it on.” Oddly, her tone isn’t anywhere near as scathing as Geralt’s thinks it should be, and in that moment he knows exactly who Yenn has brought him. “I found him, half dead with cold outside Gulera, and if he wasn’t on the verge of hypothermia, I probably would have left him there for the inconvenience of having to stray so close to Vengeberg.” Yenn sniffs. “Anyway, he’s your problem now. I’m going to go find somewhere warmer to spend the rest of the winter. Your penitent aesthetic isn’t entirely pleasing.” She looks pointedly at the bare walls of Geralt’s room. “Be well, Geralt.”

Before Geralt can protest that - well, protest anything - she takes a step backwards and the portal flares up. In a moment, she’s gone, swallowed by the swirling vortex of magic and Geralt is left looking at the sad lump on his bedroom floor. Even without enhanced hearing, the slow, laboured breathing would be audible, but to his sensitive ears, it’s harsh and even a little distressing.

“You little idiot,” he murmurs, crossing the room and crouching down next to the wet pile of bard. “What the hell were you doing in Gulera?”

He brushes the hood of the cloak back with a careful hand, to find Jaskier’s eyes closed and his skin a deathly grey. Fine tremors are running through his body, but he’s not shivering anywhere near as much as he should be, considering Yenn had said he was close to hypothermia.

“Jaskier?” he says, rolling the bard over onto his back. Jaskier’s heart rate is distinctly off and Geralt doesn’t like the way his skin feels cold and paper thin. “Damn it, Jaskier, talk to me.” Geralt thinks back to his lessons, what to do if you fall in icy water or get buried by snow, how to warm up, how to stay alive.

What he’d like to do is scoop Jaskier up and carry him down to the bath house, the hot springs in the very deepest cellars of Kaer Morhen but even as he thinks it, he knows that if Jaskier is seriously chilled, the shock of the warm water might kill him.

“You’re a fucking idiot. What were you doing in the middle of Aedirn at solstice anyway?” As he speaks, Geralt starts to strip Jaskier’s cold, sodden clothing from his near somnolent form, so the warmth of the fire can get to his chilled skin. “Why weren’t you at Oxenfurt, like you said you’d be? I left you nearly six weeks ago.” Five weeks, four days, his brain helpfully supplies. “And the weather was bad enough then.”

Under the wet cloak, Geralt finds Jaskier clad in his usual doublet and breeches, with only a tatty woollen overshirt to keep the biting chill at bay. No wonder he’s half dead with cold, Geralt thinks. Beneath the red silk doublet and fancy cotton chemise, Jaskier’s chest is bluish pale and Geralt can’t help but place his broad hand over Jaskier’s heart. If he could, he would push all the heat in his own mutant form into Jaskier.

As he thinks it, his heart swoops and plummets. He suddenly knows exactly what he has to do to warm Jaskier up, and the part of him that isn’t turning cartwheels in joy is recoiling from the prospect.

“You have so much to answer for,” Geralt mutters. He scoops the now-naked Jaskier up off the floor. “Fuck.”

Geralt’s bed sits against the inside wall of his room, strewn with blankets and furs. Kaer Morhen is a cold keep, but with the Witchers’ hot blood, it’s never been a problem before. Now, Geralt wishes he had a dozen more blankets. He shoves the top layer back and places Jaskier in the centre of the bed. Moving to the fire, he adds a couple of the biggest chunks of log he has to hand and adjusts the dampener.

Then, he strips himself naked and climbs into bed too.

“You are a fucking nightmare,” he tells Jaskier. He waves a careless hand towards the two lamps on the mantle and they go out, leaving the small candle in the sconce by the door as the only source of light. “You better not die on me, because I am so pissed with you.” Geralt gently pushes Jaskier over so he’s facing away then curls up behind him, pressing his broad scarred heated chest to Jaskier’s pale, chilled back. Tugging up the blankets, Geralt cocoons them both in a nest of cotton and wool and heavy furs.

In less than a minute, the heat becomes stifling and Geralt feels smothered. He is right on the verge of clawing his way out of the heap of coverings when Jaskier makes the tiniest of whimpers. For some inexplicable reason, the sound hurts Geralt.

“It’s okay,” he says, draping his arm over Jaskier and pressing his hand over Jaskier’s heart again. “You’ll be okay.”

Jaskier’s heart hiccups beneath his palm.

“G-Geralt?” The word is faint.

“Shh, you’re safe. Get some sleep.”

“I’m dead, aren’t I?” There’s something in the tone of Jaskier’s voice that is wistful, even as his teeth start to chatter.

“Of course not.”

“Wh-which is wh-what I’d ex-expect you t-to say.” Full body shivers now wrack Jaskier’s thin frame and Geralt can’t help but hold him tighter. “It - it hurts, Geralt.”

“Hush, you’ll be okay.” Geralt tries to imagine all the heat inside him cascading into Jaskier. “Later, you can explain what the fuck you were doing in Gulera.”

“L-looking for y-you.” Talking is difficult through chattering teeth, and so Geralt hushes him again.

“No talking. The last thing we want is for you to bite your own tongue off.”

It says something for Geralt’s frame of mind that he doesn’t even consider the fact that this would make for a far more peaceful travelling companion.

Jaskier, thankfully, heeds Geralt’s warning and falls silent. Gradually, the shivering slows to an occasional shudder, the chattering teeth stop clacking, and the only sounds are of their slow, even breathing and the reassuringly steady thump of Jaskier’s heart.

Imperceptibly, Geralt falls asleep.

The first dawn of the new year creeps in through the narrow strip of thick, rippled glass that serves as the only window in Geralt’s room. He’d neglected to pull the heavy drape across it the night before but it’s not like he’s being needled out of bed by a shaft of bright midsummer sunshine. The north-east facing window lets in just enough yellow-grey light to wake him, but not enough to rouse him fully and he lies there on his side, feeling warm and content. Waking up at Kaer Morhen is never as instant as it is on the road, not when he’s surrounded by thousands of tons of stone, far from the danger and privations of the outside world. He finds he’s loathe to move, to risk disturbing the softly snoring body that has its face pressed to his chest.

His eyes trace the faint crack that runs from the corner of the doorframe up to his ceiling as he listens to the steady thump of Jaskier’s heart. He would recognise it anywhere, Geralt thinks, and it sounds all the better for beating so close to his own heart.

It’s only decades of training that stop him leaping out of bed like some startled fawn as his brain finally catches up to what’s happening.

“Jaskier?” he asks, looking down at the dark head inches away from his own. A moment, a murmur, and then he’s looking into Jaskier’s sleepy baby-blue eyes. The previous night comes back to him and his instinctive panic turns to concern. “How do you feel?”

“I am definitely dead,” Jaskier says, his voice much improved on the last time Geralt had heard him speak.

“Oh really.” Quite why it should amuse Geralt so, he doesn’t know, but it’s struggle not to smile.

“How else would I find myself curled up in your bed, warm, comfortable… naked?”

Before he can respond, Geralt feels a hand slide across his arse.

“Yup,” Jaskier continues. “Definitely dead.”

“This is neither heaven nor hell,” Geralt tells him. He knows he should move, shift Jaskier’s hand and not give in to the terrible temptation that is lying in his arms at that very moment.

“Then how did I end up here?” Jaskier wriggles up the bed a little, nuzzles under Geralt’s chin into the soft skin of his neck.

It takes Geralt a moment to gather his scattered thoughts, marshall the necessary words and remember how to actually say them aloud.

“I - you were half dead with cold and, somehow, summoned Yennifer to rescue you.”

Jaskier stops, draws back a fraction and looks at Geralt with raised eyebrows.

“That was actually a thing?” he asks, bemused. “I thought I dreamed that. She picked me up by the scruff of my neck like I was an abandoned puppy.”

“And dropped you and your baggage on my bedroom floor, with a barrel’s worth of snow and then she vanished.”

Jaskier shivers.

“It was cold,” he says slowly. “Colder than I’ve ever known. I thought I was a dead man.”

“So why summon Yenn and not me?”

Jaskier huffs.

“What good would that have done? Roach would never have forgiven me if I’d dragged you down out of the mountains in the middle of a blizzard. I thought that Yenn might drop me somewhere warm, like a desert or tavern.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Well.” Jaskier looks down, stares at Geralt’s chest for a half dozen heartbeats. He moves his hand and hesitantly traces a scar which arcs across Geralt’s right pectoral. “I _may_ have mentioned your name. When she demanded to know who’d taught me that spell.”

“Ah.”

“You did say it was only for an emergency.”

“Mm.”

“And I thought that an ice storm after a blizzard on the longest night of the year was somewhat of an emergency. Especially as my fire would not stay in, no matter what I did to it.” Jaskier’s eyes are firmly fixed on the finger that is following another scar across Geralt’s chest.

“Which then begs the question, why you were outdoors at all on a night like that.”

“I was looking for you.” It’s a quiet admission.

“You knew I was here.”

“Someone in Oxenfurt said they’d seen a Witcher in Gulera. The townsfolk had thrown him into the prison for one demeanour or another, and so, as any decent creature would, I set out to ensure it wasn’t you.”

“In the depths of winter.”

“It wasn’t snowing when I left Oxenfurt!” Jaskier protests, but he still won’t meet Geralt’s eyes.

“And when you found it wasn’t me?”

“It wasn’t even a Witcher.” Jaskier rolls his eyes. “Just some dumb old man with white hair who liked to pick fights with anyone and everyone."

“And so you started back to Oxenfurt?”

“I tried. But then the weather broke and, well.” Jaskier’s finger pauses in its meanderings and he presses his palm over Geralt’s heart. The faintest twitch of a smile is there and gone. “I realised I’d been a touch foolish, but by that point, it was too late for anything except attempting the only magic I have ever tried to do. When Yennifer finally appeared, like some black clad ethereal vision, I wasn’t entirely sure I was seeing what I was seeing, if you get me. I looked at her and said something like ‘I only wished to see Geralt’. Then, lo, I wake up here.” He presses his lips together, as if trying to stem the words, but that has never worked before so Geralt doesn’t hold out much hope now.

He sighs.

“I’m glad you did,” he hears himself say.

“Really?” The look of hope in Jaskier’s eyes as he glances up at Geralt would be heart breaking, if Geralt had a heart that was breakable. Which he absolutely doesn’t, of course.

“As ways to die, freezing to death isn’t the worst,” Geralt tells him. He realises his hand is resting on Jaskier’s hip, but can’t think of a way to remove it without drawing attention to it. “You simply fall asleep and don’t wake up.”

Jaskier nods.

“I’ve seen worse.”

“Mm.”

The silence closes in around them, but it’s not uncomfortable, Geralt thinks. It’s a soft, warm thing, Jaskier’s breathing and heartbeat only underscoring that comfort. In the distance, he hears a door bang, as someone heads out into the cold for their odd little tradition of greeting the horses on the first day of the year.

Jaskier’s palm is still pressed over Geralt’s heart. Geralt is never sure what prompts him, but he slides his own hand up Jaskier’s side from his hip to his shoulder, then down to cover Jaskier’s hand.

“And why,” he asks softly. “With what was almost your dying breath, did you wish to see me?”

Jaskier briefly chews on his lip, then sighs.

“Because you are my first thought in the morning,” he admits. His eyes are fixed on their hands. “And my last at night. And I am a simple fool with simple wishes.”

“I’m a simple wish?”

The amusement is clear in his voice and Jaskier looks up with a frown.

“You, my complicated witchery friend, are the very furthest point from simple that it is possible to be. But one thing you are, is very dear to me.”

“Jask…”

“And I’m hoping,” Jaskier continues, as if Geralt’s heart wasn’t suddenly trying to beat its way out of his chest. “That maybe, I might be almost as dear to you. Considering you haven’t kicked me out into the cold yet, or even out of your bed. And we are naked. And, somewhat closer than we have ever been before.” He looks up through thick eyelashes and there’s that damned little grin, Geralt thinks.

“It’s not the first time we’ve had to share a bed.”

“It’s definitely the first time we’ve done so without clothes. And I very much doubt this is the only bed available in the keep.”

“Mm.”

“Mm indeed.” Jaskier’s eyes are bright, now, clear and blue and hold a depth of affection that Geralt struggles to accept is for him. “You know, if you’re just going to lie there, I’m going to have to kiss you.”

“You want to kiss…me?” Geralt knows Jaskier’s type. From busty tavern wenches and slender sons of noblemen to elegant countesses and bright young scholars there is a theme of young and beautiful that run through Jaskier’s conquests.

Geralt knows he is neither of those.

“You great, dense, lumbering oaf of a Witcher,” Jaskier grumbles. “I’m not exactly subtle, am I?” He wriggles up the bed a bit more in a distressingly seductive manner, until he is nose to nose with Geralt on the pillow. “If you haven’t figured it out by now, you’re either not paying attention or choosing to be even more self-effacing than you purport to being in public. But it seems I must spell it out, so…” And he leans forward to press his lips to Geralt’s.

~

By some miracle, when they make it down to breakfast, the only people in the dining room are Vesemir, Eskel and Lambert. Geralt wonders how many of his other brothers are still asleep. He watches Vesemir’s eyebrows go up as they enter the room. Maybe staying asleep would have been the better option, he thinks.

“I, uh, had a visitor last night,” Geralt says before either Eskel or Lambert can open their mouths.

“So I see.” Vesemir rises from his seat.

“No, I mean, I actually had two visitors. Yennefer opened a portal and brought me this half-dead idiot who had been caught out in a blizzard. She dropped him on my floor and left.”

“Thanks,” Jaskier mutters.

“And this was when?”

“About two hours before midnight.”

Vesemir nods, glances at the windows.

“And it’s now an hour past dawn.” There’s a smirk on his face that Geralt hasn’t seen before. “Well, solstice greetings to you both. You’re a braver man than most,” he says to Jaskier.

“That’s one way of putting it.”

“No, wait.” Geralt looks from Vesemir to Jaskier and back again. “He was near frozen and -”

“Relax, Geralt. You aren’t the first of my pupils who has managed to sneak their paramour into the keep for the winter, although your methods are a bit more subtle than most.” Vesemir gives Eskel a hard look, and gets a grin in return. “Just, a little warning next time?”

“He’s…” The words are there but they won’t come out and Vesemir rolls his eyes.

“He’s hungry, that’s what he is. Look at him.” He gestures at Jaskier who is staring at them all in something akin to awe. “Feed your boy, Geralt. He looks like a stiff breeze would blow him over, honestly.”

“I - I could eat,” Jaskier says.

“Of course you could.” Geralt tries to gather his widely scattered thoughts but honestly has no idea where to start. Maybe breakfast would be a good idea after all, he thinks, looking at the bread and platter of cold meat on the table. In the huge, arched fireplace, a kettle hangs on an iron hook, steaming gently.

“In spite of your somewhat unorthodox arrival, and Geralt’s inability to make any sense whatsoever, please know that we have no intention of turning you out into the snow,” Vesemir tells Jaskier. “After all, you and Geralt are now bound for the year.”

Geralt’s head snaps round to stare at Vesemir.

“What?” It’s about the only word he can manage.

“ _‘That whomst you see, at dawn the year anew, a bond does hold fast twixt both of you true’_ ,” Vesemir muses. “The old charm is why the tradition of going to the stables upon waking started.”

“Seriously?” Eskel snorts into his cup.

“It’s somewhat badly translated from the original Gnomish.” Vesemir looks offended. “Not by me, I should add.”

“I’m not questioning your recitation, old man. I wouldn’t know high poetry from doggerel verse. I meant the stables bit.”

“A Witcher always needs his horse,” Lambert points out.

“Not _that_ way.” Eskel cackles so much that Lambert has to punch him.

“Ignore the jesters,” Vesemir says to Jaskier, who is now leaning against Geralt’s side. Geralt has a strange urge to curl a protective arm around him. “It’s Jaskier, yes?”

“I am indeed Jaskier."

“Then you are very welcome here,” Vesemir says.

“I am deeply honoured,” Jaskier says with a florid bow, and Geralt has to suppress a groan. “And though I am but a humble bard, if there is anything I can do contribute to earning my keep, please, just ask.”

“You’re a bard?”

“You’re _the_ bard!”

Eskel and Lambert both speak at the same time, look at each other and start laughing again.

“I’m sure you will have plenty of stories to tell,” Vesemir says, and Geralt hates him a tiny bit too. “Get something to eat, and then you can provide us with a little entertainment, to keep the winter boredom away.”

“It would be my absolute pleasure,” Jaskier says.

Geralt wonders if it’s too late to go see Roach.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a great many works in progress, started over the past few years, but life/work/health has put a spanner in the works when it comes to actually _finishing_ and posting things. So here, first fic in nearly two years. Hopefully this breaks the block and I can get some more out in the wild. <3


End file.
